Vice President of Clinical Affairs for Remedi SeniorCare, William Vaughan (RN, BSN) and Chief Clinical Officer Jennifer Hardesty (PharmD, FASCP), were recently featured in an article published in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News.

The article, titled “Providers Grapple with Ever-Complex, Sometimes Confusing, Medication Regulations,” delved into the multifaceted issue of complying with regulations for medication management in the long-term care industry. Both Vaughan and Hardesty provided insights on the complexity of navigating medication regulations and guidelines set by the DEA, CMS and other regulatory entities that nursing homes and other care facilities must abide by.

In the article, Vaughan says, “There are certainly rules out there that are troubling. But it’s the aggregate of the rules and the many bodies that oversee a nursing home that really are.” Vaughan continues by saying, “The fact is, often those rules are either silent, provide little or no specific direction, or conflict with other rules.”

Vaughan, who joined Remedi SeniorCare after 26 years as a certified federal health facility surveyor and chief nurse for Maryland’s Office of Health Care Quality, has seen how vague, word-of-mouth “silent rules” regarding compliance can result in facilities relying too heavily on hearsay rather than legitimate medication management rules and other regulations set forth by the health care industry.

Jennifer Hardesty, PharmD, FASCP, chief clinical officer and corporate compliance officer for Remedi Seniorcare, added, “Over the past 30 years, we finally got into a happy balance in terms of interpretation and compliance. With this new rule, some facilities are hesitant to push back against surveyors and [states’] interpretations vary widely.”

Ultimately, Vaughan urges facilities to make evidence-backed decisions to cut through the confusion and stay compliant: “Don’t practice based on rumor, ‘urban legend’ and untested regulatory direction. From a pharmacy standpoint, we want people to practice based on evidence. And a great resource for that is a consultant pharmacist and medical director.”

To learn more about Remedi SeniorCare’s technology-enabled pharmacy services, contact our medication management and long-term care pharmacy professionals today.